Blog of the Treanthttps://blogofthetreant.wordpress.com
The thoughts and musings of one little tree as she heals her way through Azeroth.Sun, 01 Feb 2015 11:58:42 +0000enhourly1http://wordpress.com/https://s2.wp.com/i/buttonw-com.pngBlog of the Treanthttps://blogofthetreant.wordpress.com
We Might Have Killed Heroic Paragons? It’s Complicated…https://blogofthetreant.wordpress.com/2014/08/07/we-might-have-killed-heroic-paragons-its-complicated/
https://blogofthetreant.wordpress.com/2014/08/07/we-might-have-killed-heroic-paragons-its-complicated/#commentsThu, 07 Aug 2014 21:47:51 +0000http://blogofthetreant.wordpress.com/?p=2722]]>These guys are jerks.

Last night we were working on our current progression boss, Heroic Paragons of the Klaxxi. (We skipped Heroic Blackfuse and are going to work on him next.) It was intense! We were nearing the end and suddenly a few DPS died, and then our Disc Priest died so that I was the only healer, and then our Monk tank died, and then I didn’t see the amber pool forming under my feet and I died like an idiot, but by then we only had one boss left to kill and he was about half dead. So with one tank and 2-3 DPS alive they were ahead of the enrage timer and everything looked good… But then the boss jumped into the air to throw the amber pools, and while he was out of range they fell behind the enrage. However we knew it wasn’t a hard enrage, so people spread out so he would have to kill them one by one and everyone loaded the boss up with as many DoTs as possible.

As the boss ran around one-shotting the last few DPSers we were counting down the remaining health on vent… 1% health… 500k health… OMG they could do it… Then the last DPS died and we were filled with despair.

But suddenly– what’s this?! Victory music from Big Wigs and a bonus roll popped up! WOOT! The boss had died from DoTs just as he killed the last DPS! We were victorious!

Well, that’s sure weird. But the Paragons WERE dead… The door to Garrosh was open. We had been allowed to roll on bonus loot, and several people won gear from the rolls. The Guild News page listed us as having killed the Paragons. WoW Progress updated and said we had killed them. But the armory was not showing credit for the kill on anyone’s individual page.

The best we can figure is that the last boss died from DoTs just as he was resetting, which bugged out the credit for the kill. Somehow it ended up giving credit to the guild but not to the individual players.

At least our guild rank should be accurate, and that’s what really matters, right?

So, now what happens?

We decided to put in a ticket to Blizzard to see if they can sort it out for us. We’d like for them to give us the loot that was on the boss, which they should be able to see in the files, since raid loot is generated when the raid instance is generated. However, I’m not going to hold my breath for that, because once we killed Elegon during the phase when the floor had disappeared, leaving the loot chest floating in mid-air, unaccessable, and Blizzard’s response to our ticket was basically, “We know this bug happens, but we’re not going to give you loot, because we don’t care.”

Those 10 achievement points are very important to me.
No, getting them next week isn’t good enough, geez!

More importantly, we’d like to get our achievements for the kill. Also, we aren’t sure if we should go on to kill Garrosh in this lockout or not, because maybe Blizzard can just re-set the Paragons this week so we can kill them again, but better this time. (We still have one more raid night on Monday.) We’re not sure what Blizzard does in these sorts of situations. Maybe they’ll strip us of the bonus roll loot and say our kill was invalid! That would be sad. :(

I hate those little yellow “incomplete” bars. Someday, all the bars will be green!
(Healers… always obsessed with making the bars green.)

We were recording the kill, so a video will be available at some point, but it hasn’t been uploaded to Youtube yet.

I have a lot of WoW related dreams. Originally, they were about questing, or practicing my rotation, or farming herbs, or other mundane things that I was actually doing in-game. However, more recently my subconscious mind has started designing raid encounters (and other new game features) in my sleep, sometimes in surprising detail. Last night I dreamed of an encounter that was especially “complete”, so I feel like I should write it down. For posterity, or something.

The Setting

I obviously don’t have screenshots of a boss fight that doesn’t exist, so here, have some rocks.

This encounter takes place in a large, rocky arena; either a bowl-shaped valley surrounded by steep cliffs or a subterranean cavern with a high ceiling. It’s a bit larger than the chamber Tortos was in. In the center is a large, mechanical contraption with various valves, tubes and machinery, digging into the earth and putting out tendrils of pipe that meander across the room, sometimes disappearing underground and then reappearing in other places. The rocks are all colored in rich browns, rather like the rock formations in Thousand Needles.

Around the room there are several chambers or alcoves set back into the cliffs. Each alcove contains 4-5 caster mobs with low health pools, but which deal very high damage if aggroed. These casters are trash mobs, which do not participate in the boss fight unless you get too close to them.

The boss stands just to the right of the room entrance and has a fairly large aggro radius, so you can’t get very far into the room before he pulls. This prevents you from getting near the alcoves to kill the casters before engaging the boss.

Phase 1

Pretend this is a rocky alcove full of caster mobs.

The boss is immobile, so is tanked right where he stands. My dream didn’t provide me with much detail about the boss itself at all — I blame the fact that I don’t tank. I have no idea what it looked like, or what it was doing besides standing there meleeing the tanks. It probably had a tank swap mechanic, because every recent boss has had a tank swap mechanic, so why not? I do remember that the boss was partially protected by a mechanical shield contraption that caused him to take 50% less damage in this phase.

Otherwise, the first few seconds of the fight is pure tank n’ spank. About 30 seconds into the encounter the boss becomes inactive and big mechanical construct-type adds spawn around the entire room, spaced about 30 yards apart from each other. There are about 6 adds per 5 players. These constructs are also immobile, as well as untankable, doing nothing but channeling a single spell. They have to be killed before they finish the channel, which lasts about 20 seconds, or else they drop a large explosive boulder where they were standing. Each explosive boulder has about twice the health of a construct, and must be killed within 10 seconds of spawning. If not killed in time, the boulders explode for massive amounts of AoE raid damage.

Killing the constructs in time requires a fairly high amount of DPS. It also requires DPS to quickly spread out around the room to kill the constructs at the opposite end from where the boss is standing. In my dream, we had every person assigned to a construct, with DPS players helping tanks and healers kill their constructs after their own were dead. Then everyone worked to quickly kill any leftover constructs or dropped boulders. It might be possible to survive 1-2 boulder explosions using strong raid cooldowns.

After the constructs and boulders are dead, the boss re-activates and needs to be picked up quickly by a tank. This is back to tank n’ spank mode, except approximately every 20 seconds the boss does a raid-wide knockback. This is a lot like Iron Juggernaut’s knockback, in that it knocks you back until you are stopped by an obstacle. Luckily, there’s a giant piece of machinery in the center of the room to stop you. However, if you miss hitting the machinery, you can easily be knocked back into one of the alcoves and aggro the casters there. This is nearly guaranteed to wipe the raid, as the casters will likely kill the person knocked into them, and then run out of the alcove to pick off other raid members. (If you are reminded of Onyxia’s whelp caves, so am I.)

At this point the tank n’ spank/knockback part of the phase alternates with the construct/boulder phase until Phase 2 is triggered. Each tank n’ spank section lasts about a minute, with constructs/boulders taking about 30 seconds.

The Gimmick That Triggers Phase 2

This doesn’t look like the machinery in my dream at all, but it’ll do.

In order to trigger Phase 2, you have to destroy the machinery in the center of the room. The machinery cannot be DPSed — instead you must collect explosive resources that spawn randomly around the room and place them into the machine. When enough resources have been collected, someone can pull the lever on the side of the machine to detonate the explosives. In my dream we assigned a Disc Priest to run around collecting explosives, because there wasn’t a lot of healing required in Phase 1, (unless boulders exploded), and because he could use Angelic Feathers to keep up a near constant speed boost to help him get to resource spawns.

Detonating the explosives also prevents more constructs from spawning, and (more importantly) removes the boss’s damage reducing shield.

Phase 2

I don’t have a picture of a boss burn phase, so here — have a picture of Frank casting Hellfire.

This is a pure burn phase, very much like the final phase of Galakras or Shannox. The boss deals increasing raid-wide AoE damage until it overwhelms the healers and wipes the raid or you manage to kill the boss. The key here is to whittle enough health off the boss in Phase 1 to be able to finish him off quickly once his shield is gone. Since players have control over when he transitions, it’s a matter of balancing how many construct phases with their high burst damage requirements you can handle vs. how much raid-wide AoE damage you can survive at the end. It would probably be a good idea to save Bloodlust/Heroism for Phase 2, as well as to transition to Phase 2 after a tank n’ spank section instead of after constructs, so that you have as many DPS cooldowns available as possible.

Of course, in addition to the soft-enrage of increasing raid damage in Phase 2, there’s also a hard enrage at about 5-6 minutes, which should help prevent people from simply remaining in Phase 1 forever.

Don’t Quit My Day Job?

So, what do you think? Did my subconscious mind do a good job? Do I have a promising future ahead of me as an encounter designer? Or is this just a sign that I definitely play too much?

Hi there! Apparently, I still have a blog. I’ve just become really, really bad about writing things up. You see, when something interesting happens or I have some sort of thought, I usually just whisper or IM a couple people about it and then it’s out of my system and I no longer feel like taking the time to type it up. I know, I know, I’m so very lazy.

But this HAS to be a blog post, because it was inspired by another blogger. You see, back in February, Kamalia posted about finishing her quest to make little plushies of all the WoW dragon whelplings. They were so cute and awesome that I wished out loud for a sewing machine so that I could make some too. My husband was like, “Would you really like a sewing machine? Would you make stuff with it?” And I was like, sure! Why not? So he totally bought me one for my birthday! (I think he just wants to encourage me to have more non-gaming hobbies, heh.) And since Kamalia had kindly posted her whelpling pattern, I was good to go!

Of course, I hadn’t used a sewing machine in decades, so I knew it would take a bit of practice to figure things out. My plan was to start off with simpler projects, and I did sew together a nice little pillow with a sort of quilted pillowcase, but then I just threw caution to the wind and dove straight into dragon making.

The mostly completed pillowcase. I’m far too lazy to go take a photo of the finished product.

Introducing Derpion, Aspect of the Derp Flight!

He’s sittin’ so pretty for the camera.

Since the little guy is a bit awkward looking, I was going to name him something like Derpy, or Derptar, or Derpistrasz. When I mentioned this to Prinnie, she yelled, “DERPION! Aspect of the Derp Flight!” Which is far too perfect, I must agree. So little Derpion he is.

Anyway, because I knew my first attempt was probably going to really suck, I didn’t want to use very expensive fabric. So I just bought the cheapest cotton I could find to make a practice dragon. And yeah… I made quite a few mistakes and there are a number of things I’d do differently next time.

Hanging out with himself and showing off his side views.

First of all, I didn’t read Kamalia’s instructions very closely or study her photos to see how she’d done things. I had a pattern, what more did I need?! So I uh, totally didn’t notice that she hadn’t included seam allowances on the pattern. >.< So the body and hind legs turned out smaller than they would have been otherwise. I finally noticed the lack of a seam allowance when I tried to sew his little front legs and my sewing machine tried to eat them. I had to redo those and allow for a proper seam, so his front legs are proportionately bigger than his hind legs, at least compared to Kamalia’s whelps. I also re-drew the wings to include allowance for both the seam and the pipe cleaner armature-thing.

Secondly, I forgot to add the little top piece for his head. I don’t think it’s noticeable unless you know it’s supposed to be there though. His head is just smaller and narrower than it should be. I think it looks a bit more like a dinosaur or a turkey vulture this way.

Thirdly, I kept getting better as I went along, so the second of each pair of legs/wings turned out better than the first one, and usually slightly larger too. It’s especially noticeable in his wings.

The left wing is clearly better constructed than the right wing. Poor lop-sided Derpion!

Fourthly, I wasn’t sure how the feet were supposed to be sewn together, so I tried two different versions on the front and the back legs. I’m not sure which I like better. There’s probably an even better way to do them that I just don’t know about.

Finally, I had no idea how Kamalia had intended to sew the limbs on, so I kinda just made it up. I used buttons to attach them, which makes them semi-poseable.

Such a big world for such a little dragon.

However, there are some things that I think work well. The quilting-type thing I did on the wings looks pretty good. The zig-zag stitching in particular helps give the wings a bit of texture that I like. The semi-poseable legs are also pretty cool, in my opinion.

I’m sure I’ll try again using different fabric and trying different techniques. I may even look up how to do things next time!

Time to fly?

]]>https://blogofthetreant.wordpress.com/2014/05/07/plushie-lil-derpion/feed/13khizzaraMonster PillowcasePlush Dragon SittingPlush Dragon SidesPlush Dragon TopPlush Dragon WindowPlush Dragon Wants Out SmallTaken at the Moment of my Deathhttps://blogofthetreant.wordpress.com/2013/08/30/taken-at-the-moment-of-my-death/
https://blogofthetreant.wordpress.com/2013/08/30/taken-at-the-moment-of-my-death/#commentsFri, 30 Aug 2013 16:07:23 +0000http://blogofthetreant.wordpress.com/?p=2630]]>Our guild is now 10/13 heroic Throne of Thunder. The only bosses we have left to kill are H. Dark Animus, H. Lei Shen and Ra-Den. It would be nice if we could get them down before 5.4 drops, but there’s not a lot of time left. Also, these encounters are HARD.

Like, “Well, at least we’re wiping quickly” hard.

Stomping on our bodies to add insult to injury.

Last night Dark Animus went something like this:

OW! Ow ow ow! Why are they hitting so hard?! Oh god, why?!?!

SPLAT! Tank dead.

SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT! One healer and two DPS dead.

RUN AWAY! Try to brez someone but– SPLAT! Now I’m dead.

“This is a wipe guys.” NO, REALLY?!?!?

“You have wiped on Heroic Dark Animus at 1 min 4 sec. You have 20 wipes on this difficulty.”

…Thanks for rubbing it in, boss mod.

Beautiful Image of Death

In between wipes I was chatting with Prinnie from That Was an Accident! on Real ID and she reminded me to take some epic screenshots of fail to post for everyone to enjoy. I’m usually really terrible about remembering to hit Print Screen, especially when I’m in combat. (I mean, come on, I’m trying to keep everyone alive, hitting Print Screen is dangerous!) But there were a few moments (warning: understatement!) when death was inevitable and it really didn’t matter if I stopped to document our demise. Though I had to be quick, because the wipes happened so darn FAST.

My favourite is this one. I think it really gives a sense of what a clusterfuck last night was.

I don’t think healers are supposed to have aggro on ALL the things.

I’m taking melee hits of over a million. Also, I grabbed the shot just as I died. Xperl is showing me as dead but Healbot hasn’t quite got the memo yet.

We did improve over the course of the evening though. We’re hoping that if we get the first two minutes of the fight down the rest will be relatively easy. *fingers crossed*

]]>https://blogofthetreant.wordpress.com/2013/08/30/taken-at-the-moment-of-my-death/feed/7khizzaraHeroic Dark Animus Wipe 2Heroic Dark Animus WipeHeroic Twin Consorts Kill Videohttps://blogofthetreant.wordpress.com/2013/07/11/heroic-twin-consorts-kill-video/
https://blogofthetreant.wordpress.com/2013/07/11/heroic-twin-consorts-kill-video/#commentsThu, 11 Jul 2013 17:46:01 +0000http://blogofthetreant.wordpress.com/?p=2624]]>I know this video is long, but I just love how even on progression our raid atmosphere is usually so calm and full of banter. And if nothing else, you should really skip forward to about the 10:15 minute mark for some after combat hilarity.

I have a whole list of blog posts I want to write. I really need to get around to writing them…

]]>https://blogofthetreant.wordpress.com/2013/07/11/heroic-twin-consorts-kill-video/feed/2khizzaraFEAR THE TREE!https://blogofthetreant.wordpress.com/2013/07/02/fear-the-tree/
https://blogofthetreant.wordpress.com/2013/07/02/fear-the-tree/#commentsTue, 02 Jul 2013 20:00:19 +0000http://blogofthetreant.wordpress.com/?p=2619]]>As many of you know, I play a Resto Druid, aka, a Tree. Trees aren’t known for their offensive capabilities. We do have a few DPS options now, but not many. It’s a running joke with me to yell, “FEAR THE TREE!” and then run up to something and start tree-punching it in the face for a little extra DPS from time to time. At least one friend ironically refers to me as Scary Tree.

So today a friend and I were discussing what raid boss we would most like to be, and I naturally said a giant Tree of Doom. I would scream, “CAN YOU OUT DPS MY HOTS, MORTALS?!?! I THINK NOT!!!!”

For the last few days I’ve been leveling my Hunter and oh man, is it ever fun! I’d almost forgotten how easy everything seems as a Hunter. Round up a dozen mobs and nuke them down? Why yes, I can do that. So far my pet has only died once to an overzealous pull, and by that time there were only two mobs left so I finished them off myself with no problem. Run across a Pandaria rare spawn? No worries! I don’t even have to bother about most mechanics because my pet eats the damage while I stand safely at a distance. I’m not even Beast Mastery — I’m specced Survival and just use the Glyph of Misdirection to keep aggro on my pet. It’s awesome!

Not to mention all the taming of new pets, of course. Whoever convinced Blizzard to expand the pet stable to 50 slots has my undying gratitude! I randomly came across tracks for Savage, the Hunter-only rare spawn white tiger, and totally managed to tame him! It was an adrenaline pumping experience — the dark green tracks were so hard to see on the green Jade Forest background and I kept getting jumped and dismounted by nearby mobs — but I eventually caught him in my flare and got him. I was so excited! I renamed him Penumbra and he’s my new favorite pet.

I’ve also picked up a few other pets, but I won’t bore you with a full list of them. Suffice to say that I’m starting to worry that 50 slots won’t be enough.

Oh, and I went out and tamed one of every color of Pandaria tiger, just so I could have a rainbow Stampede. It’s hilariously epic.

Of course, getting them all to face the same direction is like… herding cats. *Ba-doom TISH*

Yeah, Yeah, Enough With the Stories, Where’s This Chart You Promised?

So as I was running around collecting 10 different colored Cats, I started to wonder what pets I really need for providing group buffs. I mean, what if I fill my stable with adorable Cats and then discover I have to abandon a bunch of them to make room for Sporebats and Spiders? To find out which pets I still needed to collect I decided to make myself a handy-dandy chart. This chart includes the minimum number of pets a Hunter needs to cover every necessary raid buff or debuff, which buff/debuff each pet brings, what other classes/specs bring the same buff/debuff and then, for my own reference, which pets I have that could cover each one.

Before I post my chart I need to acknowledge the two sources of information that I combined together:

A Few Additional Notes

There are three Buffs/Debuffs not listed on the chart:

Attack Power (+10% melee and ranged attack power). Brought passively by all Hunters, so if you’re a Hunter and you’re in a group, good job.

Weakened Blows (-10% physical damage done). This is provided by every tank spec. If your raid doesn’t have any tanks then, um… good luck? But if you really want to have your bases covered then a Bear or a Carrion Bird can provide it.

Mortal Wounds (-25% healing received). I figure this is more of a PvP debuff, and if there’s ever an encounter that requires it you can cover it yourself with Widow Venom. But, again, if you want to cover your bases a Devilsaur will provide it, but you’ll need to be Beast Mastery to tame one.

If anyone who plays a Hunter as a main sees any errors, please let me know. Also, I use Open Office instead of Excel, so let me know if the spreadsheet gives you any formatting errors.

]]>https://blogofthetreant.wordpress.com/2013/06/10/hunter-pet-raid-buffs-and-debuffs-a-handy-chart/feed/15khizzaraKami and Penumbra SmallKami Rainbow of TigersHunter Pets and Raid BuffsThat Guild Tier 15 Outtakeshttps://blogofthetreant.wordpress.com/2013/05/13/that-guild-tier-15-outtakes/
https://blogofthetreant.wordpress.com/2013/05/13/that-guild-tier-15-outtakes/#commentsMon, 13 May 2013 19:51:53 +0000http://blogofthetreant.wordpress.com/?p=2583]]>Since I haven’t been so good about updating this blog, you all may or may not know that my guild <That Guild> is currently 1/13 heroic ToT. We really should be 2/13 by now, but we’ve had a bunch of people get sick, or go on vacation, or have real life bite them in the ass recently. *sigh* We got heroic Ji’kun down to 10%, which means we are soooo close to a kill. We just need life to stop happening, dammit.

Anyway, we’ve been frapsing all our kill videos, which I’ve never gotten around to posting, because at this point I’m not sure if I should give each one their own post + write up (which sounds like a lot of work), or just post them all at once (which sounds like something no one would bother watching). I suppose I should just buckle down and do a bunch of write ups, because maybe they’d help some guilds that are still working on the bosses. I’m just so lazy.

Where was I going with this? Oh, right.

So, we all know progression raiding is serious business, right? Well, not so much if you happen to be in our guild. Behold! Our Tier 15 Normal Outtakes!

Yeah… That’s our guild atmosphere right there. LOL

]]>https://blogofthetreant.wordpress.com/2013/05/13/that-guild-tier-15-outtakes/feed/2khizzaraTitle My Toons (Plus Bonus Chibis!)https://blogofthetreant.wordpress.com/2013/05/07/title-my-toons-plus-bonus-chibis/
https://blogofthetreant.wordpress.com/2013/05/07/title-my-toons-plus-bonus-chibis/#commentsWed, 08 May 2013 02:12:44 +0000http://blogofthetreant.wordpress.com/?p=2563]]>Repgrind recently shared the titles her alts are using and asked what titles everyone else wears and why they wear them. I figure my reply is pretty long for a comment, and also that I need to blog more often, so I’m turning my response into a post instead.

Also, it gives me the chance to use these chibis that I made but never posted before. Two birds with one post! (That’s the saying, right?)

Kash usually wears “Starcaller” because I love it and it definitely suits her Boomkin spec. (Starfall, anyone?) However, when I earn a new title on her I usually wear it for a few days and then go back to Starcaller. At the moment she’s wearing “the Flamebreaker” because I was randomly scrolling through my titles and thought that one sounded cool.

I talked about her chibi in a previous post. It was not easy to make her look like a Tauren.

Kimmy uses “Crusader” because, well, she’s a Paladin and she thinks very highly of herself.

Two versions of Kimea, loosely based on her current transmog sets. On the left is her red Ret set, and on the right is her blue Holy set. I love her transmog sets so much! I should really post them here sometime…

Kay wears “Twilight Vanquisher”. I’m honestly not sure why. Maybe because she’s Disc/Holy and vanquishes the dark through her use of the light?

I think “Merrymaker” and “of Thunder Bluff” would also work well for her.

For Kay’s chibi I completely abandoned any attempt at recreating her awesome (and Mog Madness award winning) transmog set and just tried to capture the essence of her personality. I think I did a good job of that, if I do say so myself, but it bothers me a little that I couldn’t make her look like a spotted cow. :(

Khizz is wearing “the Explorer” because I imagine her as someone who wants to learn about everything, especially if she can figure stuff out for herself. That’s why she has both alchemy and engineering as professions, and why she studies magic in the first place.

I also think this chibi really captures the essence of Khizzara’s being. :D

Kami has the “Dragonslayer” title because it’s super cool and seems to fit a hunter. “The Love Fool” might also work for her personality. (Don’t let the fur mislead you — Kami is hot stuff!)

It was difficult enough to make Tauren with the chibi maker, but Worgen?! Not a chance. So I chibified Kami’s human form instead. But at least she gets to keep her fangs! There were also no bow options for weapons. WTF, chibi maker? That seems like a huge fantasy oversight to me.

Kae is wearing “Flame Keeper”, both because it has an elemental, shaman-type feel to it, and also because she sits in the city “keeping the home fires burning”, as it were. She could also wear “of Thunder Bluff”, since that’s where she lives at the moment, or “the Patient”, since she’s the second toon I rolled and has been waiting for her time in the spotlight ever since. Poor girl.

I really struggled to chibify Kaeliss. None of the options available seemed to suit her. I must have made at least 6 versions before settling on this one. For this version I went for a classy, business-like, bank-alt vibe. Not sure I nailed it. Also, not sure you can tell she’s a troll. And they didn’t have anything like her 3-mohawk hair style. :(

Kaija is “the Seeker”, as she is seeking to learn the way of the monk and find her place in Azeroth.

Oh god, making a red panda chibi is also difficult! The chibi maker does have a panda base, but it’s a black-and-white panda, which definitely wouldn’t have been Kaija. So I used the tiger base and just hid all the stripes. >.> Still not sure you could tell she’s a red panda without already knowing that’s what she is.

Ah, Frank. Titles that would be appropriate for Frank would probably include “Elder”, “the Hallowed”, or even “the Patient”. (He bides his time…)

“Farmer” would be absolutely ideal for him, but sadly he needs to level up a good deal more before he has access to it.

Of course, Frank being Frank he would much rather wear an ironic title than an appropriate one. He was sorely tempted by “the Love Fool”, but eventually settled on “Merrymaker.”

I had so much fun chibifying Frank! He looks so pretty in all the fancy dresses! XD In this version, I like to think he was invited to the annual Warlock’s ball, and this is his idea of “fancy dress”.

]]>https://blogofthetreant.wordpress.com/2013/05/07/title-my-toons-plus-bonus-chibis/feed/7khizzaraKashina Chibi BlueKaralina ChibiBoth KimeasKaylira ChibiKhizzara ChibiKamilee ChibiKaelissKaijaKorrina ChibiFrank ChibiThe Real-Life Cost of Running a Guildhttps://blogofthetreant.wordpress.com/2013/05/02/the-real-life-cost-of-running-a-guild/
https://blogofthetreant.wordpress.com/2013/05/02/the-real-life-cost-of-running-a-guild/#commentsThu, 02 May 2013 20:08:02 +0000http://blogofthetreant.wordpress.com/?p=2519]]>Neri over at Neri Approves has been wondering why everyone seems to assume that guild leaders should be responsible for paying for guild hosting services. This issue has come to a head for her because she has been feeling burnt out. She decided to stop raiding and take a step back from the game and now finds herself feeling a bit resentful about having to pay the cost of her guild website and voice chat when she’s no longer using them.

I commented on Neri’s specific situation on her blog post, but I also wanted to answer her in more depth here.

Guild services tend to be more secure and stable when provided by the guild leader. In fact, most guild leaders I’ve known have been very reluctant to give up control of the guild website/voice services to another random member. I have been in a couple of guilds where a member other than the guild leader was paying for the services, and while it worked for the most part there were issues that came up when that member changed guilds or quit the game. Guild leaders had to scramble to replace services or gain administrative access to them, in one case having to create a new guild website from scratch when the website provider disappeared. In contrast, when guild leadership changed we had smoother transitions as the outgoing guild leader handed over the metaphorical keys to the new leader.

The guild leader owns the guild and provides access to it and the guild services to the members. Providing these services helps to strengthen the guild, attract new members and retain old members. These are the goals of the guild leadership, not necessarily the guild members. (Though you could certainly argue that members SHOULD have those goals in mind.)

Why Guild Members Are Reluctant to Pay Up

Should the guild members be willing to contribute money to the guild? Ideally yes… but most are probably not going to be. After all, from their perspective: Why should they be paying for something most guilds provide for free? For a guild they don’t really “own”? When they don’t know if they can commit to the responsibility or if they don’t know if the guild will be a good fit for them? When they are already paying a subscription fee just to play the game?

If members don’t have PayPal they may find it a hassle to set up a method of payment. They may also wonder how they can be sure they aren’t being overcharged, or that the money is actually going to the guild hosting cost instead of lining the pockets of an unscrupulous guild master. New members in particular might balk at being required to donate money when they don’t know anyone yet and aren’t sure they’ll want to stick around. If they join and discover they’ll be expected to contribute to the real-life guild fund they may turn around and walk right out the door again.

How Would Guild Leaders Even Collect Funds From Members?

Requiring members to pay for guild services seems rather complicated to me. If you ask, say, every raider to cough up $1 a month, how do you organize that? Do you have them pay on a per month basis, in which case they may not want to pay any transaction fees on such a small amount, or may feel like the contribution is too small to really be necessary? Do you ask them to each pay $12 per year (meaning that each member essentially pays for one month of the service)? If so, do you ask for it at the beginning of each year (which might make people balk if they aren’t sure they’ll play for the entire year), or do you assign each player a month and ask them to pay at the beginning of it?

What do you do if someone can’t/won’t pay? If some people who pay feel resentful toward those who don’t pay? If someone with limited funds feels guilty or embarrassed about being unable to contribute (to the point where they might leave the guild to avoid having to deal with issues of payment). What about under-aged members who might need parental permission to contribute? How do you track who’s donated and who hasn’t? How do you penalize someone who doesn’t contribute?

If you just ask nicely for donations, what do you do if you don’t get any/enough? Do you cut off the service? (Possibly irritating your members.) Eat the cost yourself? (In which case, what’s the motivation for people to donate? Will you feel resentful of this?) Do you provide incentives for donating, like in-game rewards? What if it’s the same one or two people paying the cost every month? Will they start to feel resentful of the free-loading members?

Honestly, to me it seems like more of a hassle to get money from guild members than to just pay for the service yourself. It’s possible that I’m just a pessimist though… If someone has experience with a successful guild donation program please explain it in the comments!

What if the Guild Leader Honestly Can’t Pay?

Obviously, if the guild leader is financially unable to pay for guild services other arrangements would have to be made. I can think of four possible solutions to the problem:

Have a trusted officer or long-time guild member take over payment. This seems like the simplest option to me, though finding someone willing and able to do so might not be easy. Approaching people individually is probably more likely to work than just issuing a blanket request for a volunteer. (In the same way that telling a specific bystander to call 9-1-1 is more effective than just yelling for anyone to do so.) This also has the benefit of minimizing the embarrassment a guild leader might feel about having to ask for financial help.

Ask your guild members for donations. Explain what the cost will be and exactly what services/features the money will provide. I have no experience in handling this sort of situation, but I imagine that it would be necessary to track the level of donations somewhere your members can see it, (on the guild website, message of the day, etc), so that everyone knows where they stand and how urgent the need is.

Look for free alternatives. Do your members really need and use all the premium features of your website? Maybe your members would be open to using Facebook or another social media platform instead of a traditional guild forum. Can you find a free voice client somewhere?

Do without. Especially if your guild is a leveling guild or more casual/social guild you may not need any guild hosting services at all. If your members complain you can tell them to feel free to donate!

What if I Can Pay, But I Resent These Free-Loading Slugs I Call My Guildies?

Ideally, I think every guild leader (or officer) should be providing guild services because they want to do so — because they enjoy being the bearer of guild perks and take pride in the thriving guild community they help create. But if you’re starting to feel like guild hosting is a chore or a burden then it’s probably time to step back and re-evaluate what you find fun about the game.

First of all, is the burden a financial one? If you’re stressing out about being able to afford to pay for your guild website, maybe you should pass the burden on to someone else. WoW is a game and your other financial responsibilities should definitely come first.

If money is not the real issue, then maybe you’ve taken on too much responsibility within your guild. Are you resentful of having to do all the recruiting, scheduling, raid leading, loot mastering, guild bank management, etc, etc? Maybe it’s time to start delegating some responsibilities to the other officers.

Or perhaps you are just burnt out and have lost interest in the game entirely. In that case, you should consider taking a break. Hand over leadership to someone else, transfer ownership of the guild hosting to the new leader, and let THEM deal with paying for everything.

Maybe you just feel that if everyone benefits from the services then everyone should help pay for them. This is a perfectly legitimate viewpoint! However, you might find it difficult to convince your members to contribute. Resenting your guildmates is never healthy for you or your guild atmosphere, so you should probably talk to your members and encourage them to donate. The good news is that if you create a guild full of members who are generous with their donations you probably have some quality people in your guild!

Should Guild Leaders Be Expected to Pay for Guild Hosting?

I guess this was Neri’s original question, and instead I’ve mostly explained why people expect guild leaders to be the ones that pay. But should guild leaders be the ones to pay? I suppose the answer to this question is “not necessarily”. However, the guild ultimately belongs to the guild leader, who has the ultimate responsibility for everything about the guild. If the officer paying for the website /gquits in the middle of the night and turns your website into a SWTOR site the next day, guess who your members will expect to fix the situation? If you don’t get enough donations for the vent server this month guess who they’ll expect to come up with the shortfall? Sure, the members might help, but in the end… it’s on the guild leader.